The kingdom of God is nearer than you think

"Scitote, quia prope est regnum dei" (Luke 21:31), "Know that the kingdom of God is near." Our Lord says: the kingdom of God is at hand. Yes, the kingdom of God is within us, and according to St Paul our salvation is nearer than we think. In what sense is the kingdom of God near at hand? Let us think this through carefully. Suppose I were king without knowing it; then I would be no king at all. But suppose I am firmly convinced that I am king, and everyone around me maintains and insists on it, and I know for certain that the whole world agrees, then I am king and all the king's treasure is mine. If any one of these three things is missing, I cannot be king. In the same way, our happiness depends on our knowledge, our awareness of the highest good, which is God himself. I have one power in my soul that is fully aware of God. I am as certain as I am alive that nothing is as close to me as God. God is nearer to me than I am to myself; my life depends on God being near me, present in me. God is also present in a stone or a log of wood in the same way, only they do not know it. If the log of wood knew about God and realized how near he is, the way the highest angel does, then the log would be as blessed as the chief of all the angels. A human being is happier than a log of wood because he knows and is aware of God, aware of how near God is. The better he knows this the happier he is, and the worse he knows it the more unhappy he is. He is not happy because God is in him and so close to him, or because he has God, but because he is aware of God, aware of God's nearness to him; because he knows God and loves God, and such a person knows that God's kingdom is at hand.

When I think about God's kingdom I am often amazed at its greatness, for God's kingdom is God himself in all his fullness. God's kingdom is no small thing: all the worlds God could ever imagine or create would not add up to his kingdom. The soul in whom God's kingdom dawns, who is conscious of God's fullness, needs no one to counsel or instruct her; she is instructed by it and assured of eternal life. Whoever knows, whoever is aware, how near God's kingdom is, can say with Jacob, "God is in this place and I did not know it."

God is just as near in creatures. The wise man says that God has spread his nets and lines over all creatures, and we can find and know him in any one of them, if only we are willing to look.

A philosopher says: the man who is equally aware of God in all things knows God rightly. And he says: to serve God out of fear is good, to serve him out of love is better, but the one who can see love even within fear does best of all. A life of rest and peace in God is good; a life of suffering borne with patience is better still; but to have peace within a life of suffering is best of all. A person may go out into the fields and say prayers and be aware of God, or go into church and be aware of God; but if we are more aware of God in a quiet place than elsewhere, that comes from our own imperfection and not from God, for God is the same in all things and all places, and just as ready to give himself fully, so far as it depends on him. The man who knows God rightly is the one who always finds him the same.

St Bernard says: why does my eye see the sky and not my foot? Because my eye is more like the sky than my foot is. So for my soul to see God, it must itself be heavenly. What makes the soul alive to God within her, aware how close he is to her? I answer: heaven allows no foreign intrusion; no mortal lack can get in there to do it harm. And the soul that knows God is so firmly established in God that nothing can touch her, not hope nor fear, not joy nor grief, not good nor ill, nothing that could drag her down to earth.

Heaven is equally distant from the earth at every point. In the same way the soul must be equally far from everything earthly, no nearer to one thing than another, but equal in grief, in having and in wanting; whatever the thing may be, the soul must be dead to it, untouched by it, above it. Heaven is clear and bright without any stain, free of any trace of time or place. No bodily thing can find room in it. It is not itself in time, and its motion is of unbelievable speed, yet its own course lies beyond time, even though time comes from its course. Nothing hinders the soul from knowing God as much as time and place do. Time and place are fragments, God is whole. So if the soul is to know God at all, she must know him above time and space, for God is not this or that the way the many separate things are: God is one.

If the soul wants to see God she must not look at anything bound in time. As long as the soul is attending to time and place or anything of that sort, she can never recognize God. Before the eye can see color it must itself be free of all color. Before the soul can see God it must have nothing in common with nothingness. Whoever sees God knows that creatures are nothing. Set one creature beside another and it looks fair, it is something; but set it beside God, and it is nothing.

I will say further: any soul that sees God must have forgotten herself and lost her own self; as long as she sees and is aware of herself she neither sees nor is aware of God. But when, for God's sake, she loses herself and lets go of all things, then she finds herself again in God, for in knowing God she knows herself and all things, the very things she let go of, in perfect form in God. To know the highest good and the eternal goodness truly, I must know them in goodness itself, not in some partial goodness. To know real being I must know it as it exists in itself, that is, in God, and not scattered out among creatures.

The whole of godhood exists in God alone. The whole of manhood does not exist in one man, for all mankind is not contained in a single man. But in God the soul finds manhood in its perfection and all things in their first and best form, for she knows them in their true nature. A person who lives in a richly furnished house must know far more about it than someone else who, however well informed, has never been inside it. And by this same reasoning I am as certain as I am alive, and as God is alive, that the soul who knows God knows him above time and place. In this state of God-awareness the soul perceives how near God's kingdom is, namely, God in all his fullness. There is much discussion among the doctors at the schools about whether the soul can know God at all. God does not ask so much of man out of harshness but out of his great kindness, wanting the soul to grow larger, able to hold the abundance he is so eager to give.

Let no one think it is hard to arrive at this, however hard it may seem, and indeed be, at the start, this parting from and dying to all things. Once a person has entered into it, no life is easier, more delightful, or more lovely. God is so careful to stay always with a person, to guide him toward himself, in case he should take the wrong way. No one has ever wanted anything as much as God wants to make the soul aware of him. God is always ready, but we are so unready. God is near to us, but we are far from him. God is within, we are without; God is at home, we are strangers. The prophet says that God leads the just by a narrow path onto the open road, that is, into the true freedom of the spirit that has become one spirit with God. It is for us to follow his lead and let him bring us to himself. So help us God. Amen.